By Addison Schwing – Staff Reporter

The Jonathan Law Powderpuff team is preparing for its annual game against Foran High School on Tuesday, November 20.

Powderpuff is an all-female football team that plays once a year during Thanksgiving Week.

Mr. Kulenych, one of the coaches for the team, has coached Powderpuff for 11 years.

“I got involved because I really loved going to the game before I started coaching,” he said. “I saw how fun it was for the girls to play. When the opportunity to coach came up, I took it, and it’s been so much fun ever since.”

Mr. Ruzbarsky, another coach for Powderpuff, has been coaching the team for eight years.

“Mr. Kulenych was the first one to wrap me in,” Ruzbarsky said. “I used to coach football before that, and he was really the one who piqued my interest in that.”

Powderpuff debuted in the 90’s and has been a hit ever since, always occurring right around the Lawmen’s final game on Thanksgiving. The event offers juniors and seniors at Law to learn how to play football, and Kulenych relishes in the experience while maintaining high standards.

“We have pretty high expectations,” he said. “We hold the girls to a high standard, and we want to keep our win streak alive.”

Ruzbarsky also has high expectations for the team.

“Every day [our expectation] is to grow and make sure that we aren’t making the same mistakes as previous days,” he said. “More or less, the expectation is to do our job so that our overall team will win the game.”

Traditionally, teams practice for up to a month to practice for the game, but this year, they only have eight days. The coaches put a lot of effort into preparing the players for the game.

“We teach the girls plays on offense and defense, getting them ready, teaching them the game of football,” Kulenych said. “The girls are athletic and play other sports but don’t play football, so it is just a matter of teaching them the ins and outs of the game, the rules, and everything, and just getting them ready to play.”

With only a few days remaining until the game, the coach and the team are feeling the pressure mounting. Despite all this, senior quarterback Gina Boccamazzo is in high spirits .

“I’m really excited for this upcoming game,” she said. “Last year, we kinda scraped Foran, and it’s always fun, beating Foran. We’re really ready, honestly. We’ve been practicing for a few days, and we already have all of our plays. We scrimmaged against our defense and did really well. We’re all evenly matched.”

Senior running back Jocelyn Wirthis also in high spirits.

“I’m really really excited to play Foran and tear them apart again, and keep the trophy here,” Wirth said. “Mr. K. said that we already seem super-prepared, even though we have a few things to fix. I know that the offense learned every single play. I think that we’re going to do really well.”

Senior Mary Lonergan is also excited to play next week.

“I’m really excited to play against Foran and keep the trophy at home again,” Lonergan said. “I know that for defense, I’m extremely confident to play the defensive line. We’re extremely strong and very fast, and we know all of the defensive set-ups. I’m really excited to take Foran’s flags off.”

Ruzbarsky said his most significant challenges with coaching is all of the new players.  

“This year, our defense is pretty much brand new,” he said. “There are challenges every day, with teaching them exactly what they should be doing in every possible position. We have two returning kids on defense, and everyone else is brand new, and they no nothing about it, so I have to teach them about football, I have to teach them general turns, I have to teach them exactly what to do. It’s a battle every day.”

Kulenych also expressed his challenges with coaching.

“I think the biggest challenge is trying to cram a lot of information in a small amount of time,” he said. I think it’s hard to teach kids an entire sport within eight days, but I think that we do a good job of giving it to them in doses and small pieces here and there so that they can absorb it easier. At the end of the day, it works out pretty well.”

Junior Michaela Mai, who is playing on the Powderpuff team for the first time, is feeling ready and excited about the game.

“I’m super excited for the upcoming Powderpuff game,” Mai said. “I think it’s going to be a good match. I think that we have a lot of preparing to do, but I really think that we can get there, and we’re going to do great and hopefully get the win.”